Let's get this out of the way: If Imaad Wasif's name sounds familiar, chances are you read that he's serving as axe-for-hire in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' four-strong touring troupe. That tidbit might have you thinking Wasif's music is serious balls-out rawk, but you'd be dead wrong. Instead, the skeletal campfire compositions on Wasif's self-titled debut manage to be even tamer than those on the benign . Hanging his fragile melodies on little more than an acoustic guitar, these songs are stripped down to the point of emaciated frailty. At times, it works and the austerity creates a potent sense of intimacy-- you feel like you're right there with Wasif in some half-lit room, flinching at the scratch of string-slides and rubbing your eyes from all that incense smoke. Other times, though, you'd kill to have some lush orchestral arrangement or backing band bury the neo-hippie schmaltz of his lyrics.